Potter and Clay in persepective

The whole biblical concept of Lordship and obedience is completely ignored. God is not demanding much at all. All He wants from me is to love Him. He simply wants me to allow Him to be in my life by transferring my will to His will. That is true discipleship. To forget my own will because God's will is BETTER. I am sure we all know what it means when we are to present our bodies "as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God." When you give your body, you give everything it contains within your body. That means giving yourself completely to God and if you don't, God may not be able to use you or do anything for you. This is like the story of the potter and the clay, which illustrates the law of submission. The potter (God) has soft, yielding clay (us), but if the clay does not submit, the potter may not be able to do what we should be able to. The potter still could make anything except for useful and beautiful (spiritual fruitful) out of an unyielding blob of clay. If God is going to make those kinds of vessels out of clay (us), however, we are going to have to yield to the spiritual law of surrender. Give ourselves to God as a living sacrifice and let Him have us--all of us.

God knows Beforehand

The Bible clearly teaches that God knows beforehand what we will need and He will provide beforehand according to His will. One example is directly from Jesus in Matthew 6:8 "Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him." God knows what is BEST for us and we are to have FAITH in Him whatever happens in this world. From God's point of view. I arrived naked from the womb of my mother; I will leave in the same condition--with nothing. There's a right time and way for everything. He knows my current state and my tomorrows, if I have one. True FAITH sees everything in focus and be able to trust God no matter what happens. God leads us to our destiny according to His will and glory. People can preach on being specific in their faith while God is teaching is to have FAITH in Him.

Healing Versus Grace

Jesus did many many wonderful miracles and healings during the three years of His ministry. Ever since He died on the Cross, healing was only mentioned 21 times AFTER the Gospel books and before Revelations. While "GRACE" is mentioned over 100 times in the same books between the Gospel and Revelation. Balanced view of what God really promises. Not ONLY just healing. Not everyone will get the promises during their time on earth but they will when they get into heaven as Hebrews 11:39 "These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised."

Healing of Deaf Man

Regarding to a deaf man sitting by the road, not hearing what Jesus have preached AND not hearing what people are saying about Jesus. I would not know a thing about Jesus. This was BEFORE sign language and BEFORE technology. Deaf people in those days were considered very disabled and often ignored. Now, if I have "seen" Him healed others, I would rise up and walk in faith of hope. In Mark 7:31-32 "Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis. There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man." This tells us clearly that the man is just sitting there, not hearing what is going on and could hardly talk. People have asked Jesus to HEAL the man. Then read verses 33-35 "After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man's ears. Then he spit and touched the man's tongue. He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, "Ephphatha!" (which means, "Be opened!" ). At this, the man's ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly." Now.. did any of the verses say that this deaf man had faith to be healed? I didn't see the word "faith" in those verses. In verses 36 and 37, Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it. People were overwhelmed with amazement. "He has done everything well," they said. "He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak." Noticed that Jesus didn't tell the formerly deaf man to keep quiet about being healed. Jesus told witnesses to keep quiet about the healing. But of course, they could not. Deaf people have been using these verses for hundreds of years and if you look into the Christian Deaf Ministries around the world, these verses are commonly knowledge within the Christian Deaf Community.

Doctrines and MAN

It only takes two people with two different point of view that they would appear to be arrogant to each other. We find ourselves at times ignoring or diluting certain passages of Scripture that penetrate our defenses. It appears that we ALL habitually love the verses that are easy on us and shy away from the ones that disturb us. Almost everyone practice selecting and ignoring. Historically, people unconsciously select for special attention for whatever reasons or motives might be. Obviously, the Scriptures and history have taught us and still teaching us but as usual, we are "selective hearing" on various topics. Are we truly learning the lessons? According to history, I think we are doomed to re-learn hard lessons our spiritual forefathers learned and gave warning of.